My First Best Friend

Whenever I went to kindergarten, I rode the bus with my cousin. We sat in the front and silently fretted about our first day of school. I was so scared that when we finally rolled up to the kindergarten building, (because it was kept separate) I proceeded to trip over my own feet, fall out of the bus and bust my knees open.

I can still remember the red checkered shirt I was wearing that had a little bow tied at the bottom of the buttons.

After standing up, I made myself not cry as I shuffled over to the red door where my classroom was. My teacher was late though, so the door wasn't unlocked. I ended up standing there with all of the other kids ogling me as I bled into my white socks.

Finally my cousin told his teacher, (who was on time) what had happened. She came out and saw me standing there, bleeding like I was shot, with wet, glistening brown eyes. I was holding on tightly to my backpack and whimpering every time the wind blew.

"Oh, honey," she had said, bending down to my level. I felt terrified, thinking I had done something wrong. It wasn't like I wanted to injure myself on my very first day. "Let's take you to the nurse. Who wants to come with me?"

No one said anything. I had effectively made myself into a pariah with my blood stained socks and clumsy feet.

"I will!" Someone said from the back of the twenty or so students. I was a little kid at the time, littler than everyone else, so I didn't know who had piped up. Finally the kids parted as the only black girl in the entire kindergarten walked forward.

"Oh-kay, girls," the teacher said, really drawing out her okay. She walked across the blacktop, which at the time seemed like a mile.

"I like your hair," I said, admiring the clean black braids. 

"I like yours," she said. I found out later her name was Reese.

I came to adore her, and subsequently we became best friends. I remember asking her one day what happened when she stayed out in the sun for too long.

"What do you mean?" She'd responded, her braids taken out instead for two puff balls on the top of her head.

"I get all red then I get brown like this color." I showed her my tanned arms from hours and hours of baking in the sun. I looked more Mexican than White.

"I guess I must get lighter," she offered, having never thought of that.

"Maybe by next summer we will be the same color, like twins!" I was really excited at the idea of being her twin.

A few weeks later, I had went home asking my mom to do my hair like Reese's. She went out and bought a hundred clear rubberbands and sat with me on the couch braiding my hair into a hundred different braids. I felt so cool being able to look like Reese.

"Do you like it?" I asked, twirling around so she could see how my braids were like hers.

"You just need to get beads put on the ends like mine," she said, grinning. We were obviously getting closer to twin-hood.

It was almost the end of the year, and we made each other paintings. Mine was probably a tree with us standing under it; Reese with dark brown skin, and mine considerably lighter, and I think hers was us on a stage with the same skin color scheme. We exchanged paintings and climbing into the newly installed "tree house" that was a piece from one of the plays put on by one of the fifth grade classes.

"I have to tell you something," Reese said, looking saddened.

"What's the matter?" I asked. I felt sad, too, knowing there was some bad news coming.

"I am going to be moving soon. Really far away." I think I cried all the way home. I asked my mom if we could adopt her so she could stay. That plan didn't quite work out.

I hugged her goodbye on the last day of kindergarten after we had "graduated" and told her we would be best friends for life. That didn't quite work out either, but she was the coolest first best friend I could have ever had.